A dynamic and automatic traffic light control expert system for solving the road congestion problem

Traffic congestion is a severe problem in many modern cities around the world. To solve the problem, we have proposed a framework for a dynamic and automatic traffic light control expert system combined with a simulation model, which is composed of six submodels coded in Arena to help analyze the traffic problem. The model adopts interarrival time and interdeparture time to simulate the arrival and leaving number of cars on roads. In the experiment, each submodel represents a road that has three intersections. The simulation results physically prove the efficiency of the traffic system in an urban area, because the average waiting time of cars at every intersection is sharply dropped when the red light duration is 65 s and the green light time duration is 125 s. Meanwhile, further analysis also shows if we keep the interarrival time of roads A, B, and C, and change that of roads D, E, and F from 1.7 to 3.4 s and the interdeparture times at the three intersections on roads A, B, and C are equal to 0.6 s, the total performance of the simulation model is the best. Finally, according to the data collected from RFID readers and the best, second and third best traffic light durations generated from the simulation model, the automatic and dynamic traffic light control expert system can control how long traffic signals should be for traffic improvement. 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.